The start of college basketball is upon us and it was great to take in a bunch of games. On friday night, I was able to watch a bunch of games and I took in the Baylor game against Norfolk State. It wasn't a particularly great game but I did catch this inbounds play that Baylor ran against the 2-3 zone.

I've been seeing this a lot recently, teams using a 2-3 zone on the inbounds. Generally, it does a good job in the paint as you don't have to worry about switching or how to deal with screens. But every zone has its drawbacks, and here, you see Baylor run a nice give and go play to the most dangerous player on the inbounds, the inbounder, for a nice 3-pointer:

In this screenshot, you can see Norfolk State in that zone. The forward who receives the pass and hands back to the inbounder is basically screening the low defender in the 2-3 zone. The high defender on the 2-3 is in no man's land, and basically watches the 3-pointer go in, because in the 2-3, the high defender is taught not to go below the free-throw line extended,

Here is the breakdown of the inbounds play again. Really, they just get the ball into the forward in the middle,O1, the inbounder bolts for the corner, O4 hands back the ball and screens the low defender on the 2-3, and its an open 3-pointer,

For more simple ways against zone defenses, take a look at Jerry Petitgoue's new DVD on Attacking Zone Defenses. I like Petitgoue's approach because he doesn't complicate the problem, he simplifies things and makes it easy to understand what he's trying to accomplish.

I actually played against the kid (A.J. Walton) who knocked down that three two years ago when he was a junior and I was a senior in HS. He's a very good player and has the chance to make a big impact for Baylor this season.